Planning protests: JSQM to hold rallies for missing party workers

The party will meet on Dec 28 to organise sit-ins.

KARACHI: More than 34 workers from the nationalist parties, especially students, have been kidnapped by intelligence agencies, said Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz General Secretary Asif Buledi while talking to The Express Tribune about their campaign for missing people.

“We had started a non-violent, democratic and secular movement for our rights but our workers got kidnapped.”

He added that JSQM had demanded the chief justice expedite the cases of the missing workers. In 2007, Baladi had also gone missing and was recovered in 2009. He said that the party would not object if the government had framed criminals but the way they were kidnapping JSQM workers was intolerable. JSQM’s general secretary said that they were planning to organise a march from Sukkur to Karachi and would stage a sit-in in front of Governor House. They will announce a date later.

According to Baladi, the party will hold a meeting on December 28 in Thatta to organise rallies, protests, hunger strikes and sit-ins. “We are peaceful people,” he said. “We do not have a hidden agenda.” He added that party leaders including Aakash Mallah and Dr Safdar Sarki were also kidnapped by the same people but were released.

Bashir Khaskheli, Sanaullah Abbasi, Imran Jokhio, Murtaza Chandio and Bashir Arisar are some of the JSQM workers who are still missing.

A large number of party members and workers staged protests across the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2011.